General budget disappoints tea traders of Siliguri

The general budget has disappointed tea traders of West Bengal's Siliguri District, as it failed to take up their long-time demand of cutting import and export duties on tea.

The traders said the budget was unable to voice their concerns, as their situation has worsened in the last two years.

Komal Tiwari, a trader, said they had hoped for some subsidies in order to revive the tea industry of the region.

"The kind of expectations we had from the general budget, especially for the traders of the region and the tea traders of North Bengal haven't benefited from the budget. We are really disappointed with it. We had hoped from the government that by giving some sort of subsidies, the closed farms can be made operational, but we didn't get any of that. It is very bad for our industry," said Tiwari.

A tea exporter and the zonal councillor of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) north-Bengal, R K Saha, said he was expecting a relief in the recently announced budget, which the government failed to deliver.

"Before the budget was announced, we had hoped that the only industry left in the North Bengal, is that of tea industry, which is going through the worst times. It is undergoing an acute financial crisis. Thus, in a situation like this, we had expected that in this budget, we would get some sort of relief by which the economy of the entire north Bengal would have flourished. But we are really disappointed that the finance minister hasn't come up with any scheme in the budget that would provide us relief," said Saha.